Frank Edgar breaks through with UFC 98 win over Sean Sherk

Everyone knew he was a great wrestler but might not have the standup skills necessary to hang with the world’s elite lightweights.

Time to toss that info in the trash. The Toms River, N.J., native scored a breakthrough victory at UFC 98 on Saturday night, outstriking former UFC lightweight champion Sean Sherk (33-4-1 MMA, 6-4 UFC) for the better part of 15 minutes en route to a unanimous-decision victory.

Edgar won by across-the-board scores of 30-27.

“I think adding standup to my game is only going to help,” Edgar said at the post-event press conference. “My boxing coach – he hates when I call him my boxing coach – Mark Henry, he’s a perfectionist. He doesn’t let me do anything wrong. He’s really on me the whole time.

“I owe it all to him. He improved my stand-up game 100 percent.”

As an undersized lightweight with unproven striking, it remained to be seen whether the former Edinboro University wrestling standout would break through to the top of the 155-pound weight class. A fight with Sherk was sink-or-swim time, and the fighter known as “The Answer” lived up to his nickname.

“I never give predictions on fights, but in my head I kept saying ‘There’s no way Frankie Edgar can win this fight,'” UFC President Dana White said at the conference. “He’s smaller. As long as Sherk’s been in the game – he’s bigger. They’re both wrestlers. And I’ll tell you, this kid put on an amazing show.

“I’m blown away by his performance. He came in with a perfect gameplan and executed it perfectly and fought an amazing fight. Nobody’s ever seen him use his hands before.”

Sherk rode his way to the title in 2006 with his takedowns and ground-and-pound ability, but since getting run by B.J. Penn at UFC 84, he has focused on his boxing seemingly to the exclusion of the rest of his game. That worked in an October win over Tyson Griffin but came up short Saturday night.

Edgar spent the bulk of the fight sticking and weaving. He initiated the bulk of the action, mixed up his strikes, and his constant in-and-out motion kept Sherk from finding his range.

“I didn’t know what his gameplan was going to be,” Edgar said. “But watching tapes on the last two fights, he stood up most of the time. It wasn’t much of a surprise.”

In the third round, Sherk finally returned to his wrestling base. But Edgar was up for the challenge. Sherk scored on his first takedown attempt, but Edgar quickly scrambled to his feet. Edgar then stuffed Sherk’s final two takedown attempts, including one in the final seconds, in which Edgar pulled guard and locked Sherk into a guillotine choke as time ran out.

“I knew I had to step my game up,” Edgar said in the cage after the fight. “Sherk is a former lightweight champ. I’m not going to hold my head too high though. I want a shot at the title.”

Sherk, meanwhile, caused a brief behind-the-scenes panic after the fight, as he bolted from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in his fight shorts and gloves before submitting to his postfight medical exam. He was reportedly spotted in the vicinity of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, about a mile away. Sherk, who was not among fighters subjected to a random postfight steroid exam, returned about 20 minutes after he left and submitted to his commission exams.

“He was just upset that he lost,” Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Keith Kizer said. “This is a guy whose only losses were to (Georges) St. Pierre, (B.J.) Penn, and (Matt) Hughes. Now he’s on the first fight of the pay-per-view and he loses and where does he go from here? I sympathize with him.”

Sherk did not immediately return phone calls after the fight.

Dave Doyle is the Boxing/MMA editor for Yahoo! Sports. This story originally appeared on Yahoo! Sports and is syndicated on MMAjunkie.com as part of a content-partnership deal between the two sites.